Many of us have anxiety about seeing family during Thanksgiving. As a sincere Christ-follower, a part of my anxiety is a feeling of inadequacy as I engage with non-believing family members. I feel the pressure to have all the right words and present my faith with a lot of wisdom and eloquence…

In our lives, we pour ourselves into various roles. At work, we are the boss or the employee. We are the mom, dad, son, daughter, or sibling at home. In our social lives, we take on the roles of friend, host, and guest. There is a kind of humility that comes from taking on these roles because they often require an emptying of ourselves for the sake of serving those around us. Jesus knows what this is like. After all, he humbled himself by taking on the role of being our Savior.

When we are young, most of us launch into our lives full of ambition, hope, and optimism. But given enough time, we find ourselves exhausted. If we're honest, we're not exhausted because we're "so busy." We are busy, but what makes life exhausting is that it's incredibly hard. Nothing works the way it should. Our exhaustion is rooted in our disappointment, discouragement, frustration, and disillusionment. What can reenergize us? What can give us the courage to dream again? What do we need to joyfully pursue the good work set before us with new joy and optimism?